Two former Parramatta Eels players are accused of harbouring semi-automatic weapons and possessing more than half-a-million dollars in cash after dramatic arrests in Sydney's Centennial Park yesterday.

WWII veterans diminished but not forgotten

As the years pass their numbers are dwindling rapidly, but the nation's surviving World War II veterans have much to offer and Australians have been urged to seek them out and thank them.

Now in their 80s and 90s, a small number still managed to attend the annual Anzac Day dawn service in Adelaide and also take part in the traditional march through the centre of the city.

One of them who served in Europe, Bill Atkins, said Anzac Day was a time to think of his two sons, who had served in the navy and who also marched on Friday, and to remember his father who had been wounded at the battle of the Somme in France during World War I.

Holding back tears, he said some memories still hit hard.

"Especially when I hear The Ode and the Last Post," he said.

"I think of some of the blokes I went to school with who didn't come home. But that's life isn't it."

Another returned serviceman Bill Schmitt, 96, who served in the Middle East and also spent more than three years as a prisoner of war, said Australians had a shared responsibility to preserve, maintain and protect the nation's peace and freedom.

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"Those of us who were fortunate to survive long years in captivity remember with respect and love the great comrades we left behind in burial grounds throughout the Pacific and Japan," Mr Schmitt told the 10,000 who attended Adelaide's dawn service.

"Young men and women whose lives were so needlessly taken in circumstances never before experienced and never again, we trust, to be repeated."

Returned and Service League spokesman Bill Denny said World War II veterans like Mr Schmitt had much to teach younger Australians.

"They are among us still although their numbers are rapidly dwindling," he said.

"While we still have them in our midst, and before the focus shifts to the issues of history, I ask you to seek out and thank the World War II veterans in your local community."

Mr Denny also called on Australians not to allow the "romance" of war to overshadow its brutal reality, particularly in next year's WWI centenary commemorations.

"During this period we must be very careful not to allow the oft implied romance of war to overshadow the brutal reality, pain and loss that war delivers on the soldiers who serve and those that are left behind," he said.